


Four

by xmasxray



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, I'm sorry but you should be used to that with me by now, M/M, Season 13 spoilers, by the way church is already dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 08:58:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5369396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xmasxray/pseuds/xmasxray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Church's "death" took a toll on everyone, and Tucker was worse than most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four

"Ain't that a bitch?"  
  
After the message cuts out, there's silence. After that, everything is painful.

There's a constant dull throbbing pain everywhere in Tucker's body that starts the moment the recording ends. A few other recordings were made, last words left behind. Well, at least the AI had said that that was the case, and he could only hope that he’d gotten one.

He had, and it didn’t make anything better. In fact, it probably made things _much_ worse, but that didn’t stop him from listening to it more often than could be considered healthy.

The pain didn’t go away. Not after a day, not after a week, or a month. It was always there, taking up different forms and playing with his emotions. The dull throbbing of depression, and the migraines that came with the grief. The burning of his face and hands with the anger that displayed itself if he dwelled on it for too long. The sharp pain like knives when he recognizes the absence of his friend in any given situation. The stabbing pain is the worst, and it happens the most often. Sometimes it's so bad Tucker could nearly feel Felix’s blade in his stomach again.  
  
Then he'll remember the context of that situation. First the feeling of the knife, a sharp pain in his abdomen. The fear that this hadn’t worked, and that the pistol Felix aimed at his head would go off, and it would be over. That he wouldn’t live to see if it had worked.

He wondered if Church felt that same fear when they were on Chorus’ ship. Before he decided to do what he did. Before he died for the last time, with no real chance of return. Can AI even have fear? Tucker didn’t know, but he knew the old Church, or, rather, Alpha, could.

He'll remember Epsilon’s appearance, right on cue and dramatic as ever. He’ll remember the mercenary’s dumbfounded tone of voice when he realized just what happened. Then, of course, the memory of Church there by his side, the two of them saving the planet with the help of their friends.  
  
That's what was supposed to happen that time too. They were all supposed to make it out of there. Sure, the odds weren’t necessarily in their favour, but when were they ever?  
  
"See you on the other side, Church."  
  
The way it was meant to be.  
  
Wash tried to comfort him, Carolina tried to keep her family together despite the heavy toll the loss took on her too. Caboose was distant, and the reds gave them space. They were grieving in their own way too, of course.  
  
Nothing was normal, and Tucker felt empty.  
  
Everything felt wrong. There was nowhere left for him to go where the ghost of Church (unfortunately entirely metaphorically this time around) wouldn't follow.   
  
Chorus was flashes of memories, of times with and without Epsilon. Good and bad alike. The times he was gone, the times he was there. When Tucker was mad, when he couldn't find it in him to trust the AI that had /abandoned/ him.  
  
He couldn't go home; back to Blood Gulch.  
  
Blue Base would be too empty, hollow. Stood on top of the base, he'd remember all the times he'd stood up there with his best friend. He'd probably feel it, the change in the atmosphere, where lighthearted bickering turned into a shell of someone he used to be stood alone next to an empty space that couldn't be filled.  
  
The cliff, where he thought he'd lost Church the first time. He'd been different, then. They all had been.   
  
Hell, Tucker could barely stand to be around his own team. Even once they seemed to begin to recover, leaving him to grieve alone. They were there, of course, but not the way they'd been. They didn't understand.  
  
He couldn't hear Caboose's cheery voice without hearing the echos of a gleeful "Church, hey Church!" He couldn't hear him talk, hear him say something mind-numbingly absurd without noting the heavy silence in the air that should have held "shut the fuck _up_ , Caboose!"  
  
Tucker wondered if anyone else could hear it.  
  
He couldn't see Wash and not think of Epsilon. He couldn't follow Wash’s orders as leader without thinking of Church.   
  
Through losing his best friend, Tucker lost one of his other closest, because he couldn't bear to see that colour armour on anyone else.  
  
Wash started wearing grey again in the hopes that it would help, that maybe Tucker would open up.  
  
He didn't, the memories were still there.  
  
He appreciated the gesture, though.  
  
Carolina, well, Tucker could guess that she understood what he was going through the best of them all, though, at the same time, she really couldn't. The two of them would sometimes just sit together, shoulder to shoulder in silence.  
  
That started happening less and less, though. Carolina was more used to loss, and she was able to heal her scars a little better far faster.  
  
She still tried her best to help him. Nothing really worked.  
  
Epsilon had killed himself in Washington's head many years ago, during Freelancer, and that had messed the soldier up in ways that couldn't be repaired.  
  
Epsilon destroyed himself in Tucker's armour. And it wasn't even his to begin with.   
  
He still felt the pain.  
  
It was nearly a year after it had all happened, and the numbness was still felt in Tucker's fingers, the throbbing in his head and chest now a dull echo as natural to him as his own heartbeat. The beat of a drum on the hollow chest of someone who couldn't handle something that he knew would happen eventually.  
  
AIs fail, and he knew Church was only getting worse.   
  
He should have expected nothing less than another stupid fucking suicide mission from the guy who'd decided to be a martyr more times than a person should have the opportunity to.  
  
He spent all his time on Chorus over the year walking around without going anywhere. Eyes open, but not looking at anything. Without seeing. Going through the motions so that no memories would try to make any guest appearances.   
  
It's easier not to feel at all than it is to hurt, after all.  
  
Tucker sat against the wall in his quarters and replayed the message Epsilon left for him for what seemed like the millionth time.  
  
"I'm sorry, Tucker. I'm sorry. I'd say goodbye, but, well-"  
  
Tucker counted along in his head, counted out the seconds of pause between that and the next thing the recorded AI said.  
  
One.  
  
Two.  
  
Three.  
  
Four.  
  
"I love you."  
  
And if the soldier walking past his opened door heard him choke out a borderline strangled "I love you too," into the empty expanse of his own room, then, well, that was his own business.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been done for over 3 months and I've just been way too lazy to post it?? That's because I suck and I'm awful. I wrote this at like 1am with two or three other things that I may have somewhere? Who knows. That night was a fun angst fest. Anyway, I'm only a little sorry for this if I am to be honest.


End file.
